Time to put Brown and Hayward back in the starting lineup

[Greengang5]

Hayward needs to stay on the bench, he's too inconsistent and his playmaking from the bench is too important.

Ideally, I think this team will be best when Baynes is back healthy.  I'd roll with a starting unit of Baynes - Horford - Tatum - Brown - Irving with Smart, Hayward, and Morris as the three reserves.  Everyone else gets spot minutes from here on out.

Hayward has the highest plus and minus rating on the team in the month of Feb.

Which is most likely a result of him playing the majority of his minutes against opponent's reserves.

The fact is +/- requires a lot of context to be a valuable analytical tool, and simply claiming player xxx has the best +/- means nothing without context.

Hayward has the highest net rating in February of any player avg over 20 minutes (8.1).  Semi and Baynes are ahead but smaller sample size. Of the regulars only Horford (1.0) and Tatum (0.2) are positive.  Net rating is better than +-

So?

Put Hayward in the starting lineup, and playing against opponent's starters more often and I bet that rating would decrease to a number more similar to the other starters.

Maybe.  I would like to find out.  Along with Brown.  My point is Hayward isn't as useless as some make him seem.

Obviously, I can't say for sure that his net rating would decrease.  But my point was more to refute the idea that just because he has the highest net rating it means he's been playing the best.  Net rating, or +/-, which are just variants of one another, are highly noisy stats that require a lot of context to truly be meaningful.

I fully agree, though, that Hayward is not useless.

No disagreement from me.  Just tired of seeing the same lineup out there every single game.  As a fan, it is boring and then when losing frustrating.

[Spicoli]

Starters

Baynes
Horford
Tatum
Brown
Irving

Bench

Williams
Morris
Hayward
Rozier
Smart

I would not play Theis, Wannamaker, Ojeleye, or Yabusele unless there are injuries. Williams needs to move ahead of Theis on the depth chart. Williams is a game changer in the paint. He makes guys miss easy layups because they fear his shot blocking. No one fears Theis in the paint.

[mctyson]

Move Morris and Smart to the second unit.

I am a fan of Hayward moving to the Starting 5 in place of Smart, so Smart can come off the bench for Kyrie.  I think Hayward is good enough defensively now that he can cover for Kyrie on picks.

I am not a fan of moving Morris to the bench also and seeing a unit of him, Smart, Brown, and Rozier get extended minutes.

[Chris22]

Starters

Baynes
Horford
Tatum
Brown
Irving

Bench

Williams
Morris
Hayward
Rozier
Smart

I would not play Theis, Wannamaker, Ojeleye, or Yabusele unless there are injuries. Williams needs to move ahead of Theis on the depth chart. Williams is a game changer in the paint. He makes guys miss easy layups because they fear his shot blocking. No one fears Theis in the paint.

I agree, except for Wanamaker. I think he is a better player than Rozier.

[mmmmm]

Hayward needs to stay on the bench, he's too inconsistent and his playmaking from the bench is too important.

Ideally, I think this team will be best when Baynes is back healthy.  I'd roll with a starting unit of Baynes - Horford - Tatum - Brown - Irving with Smart, Hayward, and Morris as the three reserves.  Everyone else gets spot minutes from here on out.

Hayward has the highest plus and minus rating on the team in the month of Feb.

Which is most likely a result of him playing the majority of his minutes against opponent's reserves.

The fact is +/- requires a lot of context to be a valuable analytical tool, and simply claiming player xxx has the best +/- means nothing without context.

Hayward has the highest net rating in February of any player avg over 20 minutes (8.1).  Semi and Baynes are ahead but smaller sample size. Of the regulars only Horford (1.0) and Tatum (0.2) are positive.  Net rating is better than +-

Here is something more tangible:   Among Celtics that played at least 200 minutes in the month of February, Hayward had the highest scoring efficiency at a very tasty 64.0% TS.   Unfortunately, he had a modest 17.7% USG rate, taking only 93 scoring attempts all month (for comparison, Kyrie took 162 scoring attempts).

The efficiency has been good for Gordon overall of late.  it's just that he's hardly taking any shots.

[cman88]

Someone of Haywards caliber should not be only taking 3 shots a game. He needs at least 10-12 shots a game. Same with Brown.

When Kyrie was out, Haywards usage went up and he played well for 3 straight games.